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Clean hard drive?


crillis

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Hi all, I am new to this forum and hope someone can answer a couple questions.

 

I am curious if ccleaner is cleaning my entire hard drive. In other words, when I run the secure file deletion (3 passes) is ccleaner only overwriting the recent files or is the entire hard drive being cleaned?

 

Also, what is the status of deleted files (deleted with IE tools) that may be on my hard drive before I installed ccleaner? Are these past files still retrievable?

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when I run the secure file deletion (3 passes) is ccleaner only overwriting the recent files or is the entire hard drive being cleaned?

 

Just the files displayed in CC's window are what's removed, CC doesn't clean everything on the harddisk.

Are these past files still retrievable?

 

With secure deletion files aren't really "recoverable" however if an organization like the FBI were after you and seized your computer they could possibly recover stuff from the slack space data, to what extent I don't know.

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I use normal file deletion mode, files are still recoverable for some time with recovery tools.

Due to the way hard disks work it might be possible to recover files.

 

With secure file deletion mode, CCleaner overwrites the files it deletes several times to prevent recovery. The more passes you use, the more difficult it is to recover.

 

DOD-5220.22-M is 3 passes and apparently good enough for the Department of Defense for most stuff so I guess it should be good enough for you too.

NSA is 7 passes and apparently good enough for the NSA, so I guess it should be good enough for you too.

1 overwrite is probably good enough that it isn't possible to recover with any recovery software, but it may still be possible to recover data in expensive labs.

 

Gutmann method isn't implemented by CCleaner, but it uses 35 passes of overwrite.

 

The more passes, the more time it takes.

 

 

 

Btw, thanks Andavari for the link to wikistc, I didn't knew about that wiki, it seems really really interesting, I will definitely check it out!

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crillis asked:

[...]is ccleaner only overwriting the recent files or is the entire hard drive being cleaned?

 

You are actually mixing up three things here... "Wiping", "Deleting in general" and "Deleting by CCL".

 

a. If you want to completely wipe out your harddisk (or single files) - CCL. is definately not the right tool to do so. "Eraser" can do that.

 

b. CCL. has its predetermined folders to find general (not personal) files for deletion - no matter if you even have had redundant files to delete (or wipe) in other locations of your system before installing CCL.

 

c. CCL. is able to delete Temp- and Protocol-Files (Junk-Files) evoked by the Operating-System and participating Applications within their designated folders.

 

d. If you look for a cleaner, that deletes redundant files throughout your harddisk - you need a secondary programm that searches within your entire drive...

 

Regseeker could do that - you just have to "feed" the Programm with the files you want to delete:

 

A proposal for such a general deletion procedure under Regseeker could be:

 

*.tmp; *.temp; *.gid; *.chk; *.~*;*.log;*.sik;*.bak;*.txt;*.db;*.old;*.pf;*.hlp;mscreate.*

 

 

Oliver

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Buzzzzzby advised:

You could use SysInternals free program SDelete which will clean your disk free space.

A very good advice - but the thread-starter (crillis) seems to be in need of an overall cleaning solution for the entire disk - not just wiping around already existing files because:

quotation crillis:

I am curious if ccleaner is cleaning my entire hard drive.

it is never a good advice to clean around already excisting files - files that actually can?t be moved anymore, (execpt the procedure of defragmenting those files).

 

concerning my oppinion, it is a much better advice to completely wipe a Boot-Disk from the scratch (7-run-overs) - just to install the most necessary Boot-System-Files on that Disk afterwards >>> Perform an immidiate, adjacent Image of that "Virgin-System".

 

Confidential and personal files should then only be kept on a separate solid-state memory (USB-Stick) or a separate USB-Hard-Disk-Drive.

 

@Greenknight

Concerning my oppinion, Easy-Cleaner does not even get close to the performance of CCleaner.

 

Regseeker, and the JV16 Power Tools are indeed doing a pretty goog job - JV16 is just not for free...

 

 

Oliver

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You could use SysInternals free program SDelete which will clean your disk free space (i.e. it will wipe all traces of previously deleted files.

 

It is a command line utility which means you go to Start> Run> and type 'command' or 'cmd' (no quote marks) and press Enter.

This will bring up the black/white command window.

 

Just drag the extracted file 'SDelete.exe' onto the window and you should end up with a line something like this, depending on the location of your copy of SDelete:-

 

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name>"F:\My Downloads\All Downloads\Compressed\sdelete\sdelete.exe"

 

If, for example, you want to wipe the free space on your Drive E, with 3 passes, you would add (space)-p 3 -z E: so you end up with the line below:-

 

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name>"F:\My Downloads\All Downloads\Compressed\sdelete\

sdelete.exe" -p 3 -z e: (don't forget the colon after the drive letter)

 

Now press "enter" and it will start. It will take a while depending on how many passes you require it to make, but you'll end up with a nice sanitized disk with only the operating system on it (assuming you had already deleted everything except the operating system).

 

If you enter no drive letter (by missing out the " -z etc" bit) then it will just wipe Drive C with your specified number of overwrites.

 

SDelete works on Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003.

 

 

Sorry to be long-winded about the above but better too much info than too little - and I don't know if you know about command lines! :)

You CAN lose your dog because it got loose.

You CANNOT loose your dog because it got lose.

Spot the difference?

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A very good advice - but the thread-starter (crillis) seems to be in need of an overall cleaning solution for the entire disk - not just wiping around already existing files because:

 

Hi Oliver,

Actually I meant to respond to this post "Selling Computer" rather than this one about fully cleaning hard drives, but messed it up because it was a similar topic. :unsure:

 

By the way you can still get jv16 Power Tools version 1.3 (which is the free version I still use) from OldVersion.com

 

At least I presume it's the same free version as I have though I had downloaded mine from the authors web page before he made it commercial.

You CAN lose your dog because it got loose.

You CANNOT loose your dog because it got lose.

Spot the difference?

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